Northern
Rural Life in the Eighteenth CenturyCHARLES HACKET OF INVERAMSAY

CHARLES RACKET OF INVERAMSAY—A LOCAL SCENE IN THE
FORTY-FIVE—RACKET AS AN IMPROVER.

DURING the closing days of September 1745 the good town
of AberdeeR was put in a sad stir by reason of a certain irruption then
made. Prince Charles Stewart had landed on the west coast, had advanced to
Edinburgh, had fought and won the battle of Prestonpans. And now, on the
25th day of the month named, the very day, as it fell out, of the Town
Council election, when, according to use and wont, the old Council had
elected the new, and they had not yet got the length of electing the
Provost, John Hamilton, in Strathbogie, entered the town in a hostile
manner, "drums beating and colours flying," with "a band of armed men,
both horse and foot," at his back. The rebel forces were paraded at the
Market Place and Cross. Meanwhile the valiant councillors had promptly
taken to flight, and John Hamilton had it all his own way. He sent in
quest of "James Morrison, Esq., present Provost," and his messengers not
finding that gentleman at home, a second party was sent with orders to
burn his house if he did not appear. What effect this threat may have had
is not apparent; but the Provost was at last found, and carried down
prisoner to the town-house. They next set him up upon the Cross in the
company of a couple of Baillies and certain of the councillors, where he
had to listen to a disloyal Sheriff-substitute reading the Pretender’s
manifestoes. "Thereafter they caused wine to be brought to the Cross,
where they openly and avowedly drank the Pretender’s health, and several
other treasonable and rebellious healths." They even "endeavoured, by
force, to make the said Provost drink their healths," "which he refusing,
they poured the wine down his breast."

After John Hamilton came Lord Lewis Gordon, who, by and
by, in his assumed title of Governor of Aberdeen, issued an order, in
Prince Charlie’s name, for the collection of the King’s cess. In the Diary
of Rev. John Bisset, one of the ministers of St. Nicholas, under date
February 3, 1746, is this entry :—" This day the drum went warning all yet
deficient in paying their cess, in the name of Lord Lewis Gordon to repair
with payment to the quarters of one Hacket, empowered to gather it up,
under the pain of military execution." The Town’s Collector, Mr. Dirom,
being, it would seem, of loyal temper, and somewbat advanced in years,
excused himself on the score of physical frailty, but recommended his
clerk, Charles Hacket, as a person likely to be found suitable for the
business. Charlie Hacket was an active young fellow, and being a red hot
Jacobite to boot, he collected the cess accordingly with all due zeal, as
indicated by the Rev. John Bisset, which served to bring him into trouble
by and by, when Culloden had been fought and the Pretender’s hopes
shattered for ever. In those days Charlie Hacket, to use his own phrase,
got familiar with the practice of "sleepin’ in his beets." He skulked
about where he best might, his hiding place for a while being, it was
said, at the further side of the meal-girnal belonging to a Garioch laird
of like leanings with himself, but uncommitted by any overt act.

Better times came, however, and Charlie Hacket having
married Miss Smith, heiress of the pleasant estate of Inveramsay
(anciently Poolwall) in the Gariocb, became life-renter of that property,
and by and by got to be well known as a zealous and successful
agricultural improver. [Among the local rebels taken prisooer in December,
1745, was Mr. Smith, Junior, of Inveramsay; and in the list of excepted
persons against whom an ignoramus verdict was returned in 1742 was
David Smith of Inveramsay. The obituary notice of Mr. John Smith, Senior,
which appeared on October 80, 1750, ran thus :—" Last week, died at
Inveramsay, aged near 100, John Smith
of Inveramsay; a gentleman who thro’ the various scenes of a long hfe, in
all its different stations, had the deserved character of an
upright,honest man." His decease allb wed Hacket to sncceed to the
life-rent of the estate.] And it is in this phase of his character that we
have to look at him.

That Laird Hackct of Inveramsay was decidedly in
advance of his time in his general notions of agriculture, the traditions
of the place, and even the outward aspect of the home farm which he
cultivated, testified long after his day. He had been at pains to lay out
the land in well-arranged fields, which he duly enclosed with fences,
planting rows of ash and other hardwood trees, where he thought it
suitable and neccssaryfor shelter or ornament. And the more elderly
natives of the generation following that to which he belonged had ever so
many stories about Laird Hacket-. He was a Jacobite, as has been said, as
well as an ardent farmer, possessing in full measure the Jacobite habit of
swearing; and so there came the long-lived local bye-word—---" Like Laird
Hacket: that bann’t a’ the ouk an del’t dockens on Sunday." He had a
portrait of the Pretender over the fire-place in his sitting room, which
he would gaze upon and apostrophise, not always with perfect placidity,
when he thought of his own sufferings as a Royalist. Yet when he went to
chapel, being a faithful adherent of the Episcopal faith, as prayer for
the reigning sovereign was offered up, his response would be an audible
groan in place of the orthodox Amen. At times, it is said, his feelings
found vent in even a more emphatic form of expression.

Let us sketch the personal appearance of this last
century laird. A small, compactly-built man, with brownish-coloured coat,
and worsted knee breeches, knitted—as were also the stockings that encased
his sturdy and somewhat "bowed" lower limbs—by his own wife. On his head,
when in the sort of undress that served for every-day home use, he wore a
worsted nightcap, or Kilinarnock cowl, underneath which glowed his reddish
visage and sharp twinkling eyes. Such was the man, who, "doeken" spade in
hand, strode about commanding everybody right and left, and astonishing
his jog-trot neighbours by the novelty of his proceedings as an
agriculturist.

He sowed turnips first about 1750, and in those days
people came from the next parish, when harvest was over, to buy them by
the pound and stone weight from his farm grieve, to be used as a dainty
dish at the "clyack" supper and other fit occasions. He sowed at first
broadcast, a practice which, although given up earlier in some localities,
prevailed pretty commonly in Aberdeenshire down to the close of the
century, and even a little later. And he believed in the broadcast method
for the time, though not impervious to argument on the subject. When
drilling began to be advocated, Hacket saw fit to forego the old practice
for a season in favour of it. The crop disappointed his expectations,
however, and in hot ire he exclaimed, "Deil drill me aff o’ the earth if
ever I drill again." Yet he did drill again, not once but frequently,
having seen reason to change his opinion, while the arclj, enemy took no
immediate advantage of his rash uttefance.

Hacket’s tenants, as was common in those days, were
bound to give certain personal services to their landlord; and these
services included a day at turnip hoeing. In order to compel the workers
to keep their eyes sufficiently near the ground to admit of the plants
being clearly seen, the regulation length of the Jaoe handle was fixed at
two feet and a half.; and when the laird saw a hoer standing too erect to
suit his ideas, he would march up to him and demand his implement to have
the handle curtailed. Certain sturdy fellows, who claimed the right to use
the form of handle that was satisfactory to themselves, promptly resisted
any such interference, at which the laird would explode in great wrath. Re
had no help but submit, however, for, with all his energy and vehemence,
he possessed not the physical strength of such men as Barclay of Ury, and
therefore was not in a position to follow his method of training—In those
days they one and all believed in the maxim, "Kiss a earle an’ clap a
carle, that ‘s the way to tine a carle. Knock a carle an’ ding a carle,
that ‘s the way to win a carle."

But it was not in independent turnip hoers alone that
Laird Racket encountered the "stalk o’ carl hemp." It was told how, on a
"forcy" leading day in harvest, he had gone to the stackyard, where a
"rick" was in process of building. It was well on toward the "easin’,"
when Saunders, his grieve, who was a-top of it, for some reason good and
sufficient to him, desired the "forker" to slacken his hand. The laird,
who, in his own impetuous way, had been urging all speed for fear of
broken weather, peremptorily ordered the man to go on. He was obeyed, and
the sheaves were pitched up with redoubled force. By and bye there was an
ominous growl of remonstrance from the top of the stack, which had no
result but a renewal of the laird’s order with increased emphasis; next
there appeared over the edge of the sheaves a pair of very sturdy legs,
the owner of which evidently meditated a sudden descent to terra firma,
whatever else. No further hint was waited for. With a just appreciation of
Saunders’s temper when roused, the "cornyard" was forthwith cleared of
human occupants—the laird, who led in flight, followed by the forker,
losing his stick as he doubled through between the bars of the "yett," and
staying not for an instant to pick it up again.

One operation in improved husbandry, which was disliked
and despised by the natives, was that of enclosing. Of old time cattle had
roved hither and thither much at their will, and the idea that they should
be restricted in so doing was reckoned very intolerable. Improvers
generally had a good deal to do in contending against this feeling which,
in some cases, led to fences being wilfully thrown down, and newly planted
trees pulled up. And as Hacket’s temper was none of the calmest, he was
apt to get greatly irritated at the idea of any thing in the nature of a
trespass upon his lands. On one occasion he had observed the cattle
belonging to the miller on the neighbouring estate straying over a fine
haugh upon the lands of Inveramsay, and he set off in hot haste to impound
them for the damage done. Not so fast, however. The miller’s herd had
probably been taking a quiet snooze by the dykeside when his charge
strayed over the burn, but by the time Laird Hacket had reached the lower
end of the haugh, he was wide awake, as the laird speedily found. For he
had scarcely begun to move off the beasts, which he was prepared to treat
as his lawful captives, when the herd, a stout, half-grown fellow, as
herds in those days were, came scouring along with an armful of stones,
with which he forthwith commenced a vigorous assault on the enemy, who was
glad to make "his feet his freens," as he had done after Oulloden;
ingloriously quitting his prey, and returning homeward even more quickly
than he had come, while the incensed herd followed him a good way along
the brae with a furious fusilade of stones.

At another time, when passing near the outskirts of his
property, Mr. Hacket met Saunders Nicol quietly driving home some
half-dozen sheep which had evidently been straying on the laird’s land,
where they had been feeding for half the day, or, it might be, nearer the
whole of it. Hacket flared up at the idea. of such a trespass on his
"bounds," and, in the parley that ensued, lifted his stick, with the
exclamation, "I’ll hazel ye, sir!" uttered in his fiercest tones. "An’ ye
hazel me the nicht, ye maybe winna hazel anither the morn !" answered
Saunders, coolly jogging on with his ewes, and leaving the laird, who, no
doubt wisely, deemed discretion the better part of valour, to digest his
wrath at leisure.

Such was this improving Garioch laird, and such the
relations in which he stood toward those amongst whom he lived. But with
all his oddities, Hacket, as an improver, achieved good results himself,
and gave a distinct impetus to agriculture in his locality. The writer of
the Old Statistical Account of the Parish of Chapel of Garioch, in which
Inveramsay is situated, while crediting him with having first introduced
"the culture of turnips and sown grass" in that parish, adds, that his
example in farming had been followed by many in the neighbourhood. "The
crop of one field upop the Mains of Inveramsay, which before Mr. Hacket’s
improvements was sold for 30s., is now," he says, "reckoned worth £60
sterling; and the rest of the farm is improved in the same proportion." He
retained his reputation as a capable business man throughout, and one of
the records we find of him is in the famine year 1783. [There are one or
two later entries. In 1790 the mortcloth is required for Mrs. Hacket. In
1792 a certain female appears before the session, and a letter is read
from Charles Hacket acknowledging himself the father of her illegitimate
child. He offers to pay what fine they thought right to inflict, if they
would allow the case to he dismissed "sessionaily "—that is, withont any
public appear. ance before the congregation. £3 being paid "to the poor,’
the case is dismissed accordingly. We must not forget that Hacket, who
thus negotiated with the Presbyterian Kirk-session, was him. pelf a
staunch Episcopalian.] The kirk-session had met to consider the
necessities of the parish on account of the dearth, and having resolved to
purchase a quantity of peasemeal, they entrusted to him the duty of
negotiating for the same—a duty he seems, from the session minute, to have
discharged both well and promptly, his "activity" in the matter being
specially mentioned.

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